Archive for July 2015

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2015-07-07 Devotional with Hymn No comments

I will hear what God the Lord will say;
For He will speak peace to His people.
(Psalm 85:8, NASB) 

God, Your ways,
Your wisdom,
Your guidance
are so precious,
so perfect,
so life-giving.
They are always spoken in the purest love, and
specifically for me.

You lead me moment by moment.
When I have a need,
Your love never fails.
Your wisdom never falls short.

But, Lord, I fear at times that I miss some of Your
most delicate,
most tender,
most precious words to me.
I fear Your voice is drowned out by the noise of
my own plans and
foolish desires.

God, I set aside my desires and open myself to You.
When You speak,
I want to hear every whisper.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: God Is Speaking
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

Our Father’s Discipline

2015-07-05 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves. (Hebrews 12:5-6, NIV)

Remember what kind of creatures we were when we began our spiritual lives: selfish, impatient, fearful, unreliable, proud, and prone to choose our own way.

Is it surprising, then, that our loving and all-wise Father would humble us by struggles, teach us by temptations, prod us through pain, and continually draw us to himself through various needs?

God knows what we need, and all that He does is for our good. If we realized how much He loves us, we would gratefully receive from Him both the bitter and the sweet. He turns the hardest and most disagreeable trials to blessings. Trust Him and humbly submit to Him no matter what comes.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Holy Father, Only You
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

Forgiving Others

2015-07-02 Devotional, Pictures of God No comments

from the devotional book, PICTURES OF GOD

Matthew 6:9-15

Notice that the Lord’s Prayer puts a condition on God forgiving our sins:

“Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.”
(Matthew 6:12, NIV)

If we want our sins forgiven, we must also forgive those who wrong us. This is so important that immediately after the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus emphasizes that one point:

“For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” (Matthew 6:14-15, NIV)

Why would our Father, so anxious to forgive us, put such a condition on our forgiveness? Why must we forgive others in order to be forgiven? Why are the giving and receiving of forgiveness inseparable?

  • We cannot embrace forgiveness as the solution for our sins without embracing it for others as well. Either forgiveness is the solution for sin or it isn’t.
  • Forgiveness cannot flow to us until it can flow through us.
  • Until we grant forgiveness to the one who wronged us, we too are enslaved by their sin. We who were wronged continue to suffer – we suffer lovelessness, resentment, anxiety, anger, and more. We cannot enjoy the blessing and freedom of forgiveness until we both receive it for the wrongs we do and give it to those who wrong us.
  • We tend to excuse our wrongs and blame others for theirs. Jesus urges us to do the opposite: excuse others and be more aware of our own failings.

An unforgiving heart is an unloving heart. It is a heart diseased with self-centeredness and bitterness. We cannot enjoy an open Father-to-child relationship with our forgiving God if we refuse to both give and receive forgiveness.

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